Olive Branches and Three Boras
by Can'tStopImagining
Summary: Now that they're not talking, their cubes are too close together. Nicky/Lorna


**A/N: **I debated whether or not to post this because it's literally a story opener that I wrote forever ago and then decided not to use, but I kinda like it, so I thought I'd post it regardless of how short it is.

I'm working on something that is currently 6000 words long and nowhere near finished, so there's that...

* * *

Their cubes are so close together, they're practically touching. This was great when they were having sex. Sometimes, Lorna was too tired for an excursion to the chapel, happier having a brief fumble under a thin blanket, minimum effort required. Nicky could walk past, give her the look, and they'd be in the shower, or in a store cupboard, or, well, anywhere, in less than five minutes. Once they stopped fucking, settled on friendship, they were close enough that they could call a bunk search and Lorna could flee back to her own bunk after a game of cards, squealing about her lipstick being taken, before the CO had even started searching.

Now that they're not talking, it's too close.

It's bad enough having to share a lunch table with someone, having to vacate the TV room when they walk in, having to reorganise your shower schedule so you don't bump into them, but not even being able to sleep because you're so fucking close you can hear them breathing is the final straw.

She could just apologise, but the 's' word isn't a part of Nicky's vocabulary, so she won't. She's being stubborn. It's one of her most annoying personality traits (she knows; Red reminds her often enough), but she's trying to prove a point. Morello's made her soft. Everyone keeps saying it. Boo has been mocking her for _months_ and now something's snapped.

She's always had this intense anger inside of her. At her mom, at the world, at anyone who gets within firing range. Ironically, she's been happier since being thrown into prison, but lately, something has sparked that inextinguishable wildfire in her back up, and she's sick of fighting it. She wants to storm the world, wants to burn anything and everything in her wake. She wants to destroy everything, destroy herself. She can hear past vices calling her name, whispering for her, and she aches to go back to them. Most of all: she's tired. She's tired of fighting. She's done.

She betrayed Red, and that's basically the same thing.

She's the reason Tricia's dead. She's the reason their fucked up little family is falling apart at the hinges. _Little girl, big mouth._ That's all she's ever been. Unable to control herself, unable to stop the inevitable _fuck up_ that she's been her whole damn life.

She tries to sleep, but she can't. Red's forgiven her. They've had their little goodbye ceremony for their fallen sister. The wound's not healed, but it's had a massive great bandaid slapped over it, and she thinks that should be enough. She thinks that she should at least be able to get some shut eye for the first time in four days.

Two bunks away, Lorna's awake. She knows she's awake, because she can hear her sniffing, can hear her loudly sighing every few minutes. It's a fucking annoying trait, she thinks, the way she over-dramatises everything. They're not talking, and they're certainly not fucking, so she's ignoring it. She's ignoring the way it makes her chest ache and her throat dry, because it's the fact she can't fucking sleep with that racket two bunks away from her that's getting to her, not the itching to run her fingers through Lorna's soft, dark hair, or the urge to kiss away her tears. Because that would imply she feels something for the girl, and she doesn't. She flatly refuses to.

They're not fucking anymore so it's not like she has to be loyal to her.

When they were mourning Tricia, she felt the faintest stroke of Lorna's fingers against her knee, and it was comforting. It sent a warmth through her that almost let her forget why she was mad at her.

(Why is she mad? Because they aren't sleeping together anymore? Because she can't bear to look at Lorna and remember that she wants someone else, that she has someone else waiting for her outside, when Nicky has no one? Because Lorna doesn't know that Bora Bora only has two _fucking_ Boras? She doesn't even remember anymore.)

Nicky sighs.

Sliding out of her bed as quietly as she can, she pads out of her cube, and walks the ten steps to Lorna's, sticking her head around the wall. In the dark, she can make out the bulk of Boo fast asleep on her own bunk, Lorna curled up with a pillow tight to her chest in hers.

"Hey kid," she whispers, and Lorna, who hasn't noticed her yet, practically jumps off the bed, before softening, realising it's only Nicky.

"Nichols, you scared me."

She chuckles quietly, "I get that a lot. How you doin'?"

Lorna visibly swallows. She has tear tracks down her cheeks, her eyes are red, and she's clinging to her pillow like it's a life preserver and she's drowning. Nicky knows she's going to lie, put on a brave face, before she even opens her mouth.

"Oh, y'know, I'm fine."

Her voice is too high-pitched, too cheerful, and Nicky feels like she's on a merry-go-round, like this has happened so many times before that she's dizzy. _You didn't have to come here_ she thinks, but for once, being a decent person wins out, and she sits down on Lorna's bunk, wraps an arm around her. Lorna sinks into her touch, rests her head on Nicky's shoulder.

It's not an apology, or a fucking olive branch... it's survival. At least that's what she keeps telling herself.


End file.
